


hands full of matter

by trell (qunlat)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Aromantic, Chapter 783, Dressrosa Arc, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:35:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3718750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qunlat/pseuds/trell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If he lives you’ll kill him yourself, for being so recklessly good-hearted, for being such a </i>fool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hands full of matter

There is no room for dignity in pain.

It’s a lesson you learned early on, this one: the moment you were old enough to follow at your father’s coattails while he made his rounds, barely tall enough to peer up at the hospital patients in their beds. Pain, you found, made people ugly; made them beg and plead, sometimes with your father (who looked as though it hurt him just as much, being unable); sometimes with God, and the sisters taught you that God helped those in need but you never saw Him there, amidst the beds, amidst moans of pain and grimaces in silence.

Death, you found later, had no more dignity to it than illness, nothing more glorious. Death was bodily fluids, blood and voided bowels, bile; where pain left people to beg death left them stripped bare absolutely, desperation frozen on their faces, blood-warm skin gone cold.

So it’s fine, when you wake—pulling yourself out of unconsciousness like pulling teeth—and find yourself helpless in the arms of a stranger, carried like the dead weight you are; just fine, for if pain leaves no dignity then surely you left any vestige of yours miles and miles behind.

And it’s fine too that you have to plead, when you get enough air in through your torn-up throat, _stop, leave me, please_. Pride has no place among the dying, only among those left behind; and you, your heart pounding off-tempo in your chest, blood in your mouth, your side gone nearly numb again in the wake of screaming agony, no longer mind having to beg.

It’s enough to get the blonde idiot hauling you across the rubble to stop, and when he sets you down you look up, _up_ , trying to find your last remaining focal point, all your chances converged into one single hell. Strawhat and your greatest demon, facing down at last. 

Your vision is a blur. There’s blood in your eyes (and on your one remaining palm, and down your side and chest, and pooled and drying at your back; coating so much of you it seems like there’s less inside you than without) and the rooftop of the castle seems so far, too indistinct. You struggle to see, anyway: because this is _it_ , this is all you’ve done and all your soul expended, the only thing that’s left.

There’s a crash from above, and then.

You see him: dust and plummeting masonry obscure the view, but you do, see the flash of his hat at his back and him going in swinging. He’s shouting something that you’re too far to hear, and relief hits you like ice water; because he’s still fighting, still going, still _alive_.

(It reminds you instantly of surfacing at Marineford, bolting out on the deck and searching for him in the thick of it. He’d been pursued, the red dog of the navy descending at his back, and when you saw him at last you’d thought you were too late, too late _again_ , your heart dropping like a stone.)

Only you hadn’t been too late, after all; and lying atop the remnants of the castle of Dressrosa you are suddenly, ludicrously angry, because you didn’t save him _then_ so he could die for _you_.

There’s another thunderous impact above, contact with the enemy, and you try to roll over onto your left side to better see. The motion makes your whole world go skewed, shooting pains running up your arm and into your skull like pounding nails. Instead of pushing yourself up on your elbow you find yourself curled over and retching, blood and bile, _damn._

It doesn’t matter. When you can breathe again through your convulsions you look for him again, try to focus, try to see, ignore the worried noises coming from the man that dragged you here. If Strawhat loses it’s your duty and your punishment to watch; you brought him here, fool that you are, led him and lied, if he dies you’ll follow after.

And if he should win—

You can’t finish that thought. You’d wanted to die (still wait for it, know how close you are, both feet in the grave already, _only a little longer_ ) but you didn’t mean for him to go with you, didn’t mean to tie his fate to yours.

Damn him for living up to all your stupid faith.

(And just minutes ago you’d kissed him for it, in between Trébol’s flames and cold unconsciousness, clutched the lapels of his shirt and pulled him down. A terrible kiss—you having coughed up blood just moments before, him startled, off-kilter—a kiss you stole all the same, selfish and compulsive and _furious_. Damn him for giving you something more to lose.)

You see him hit the palace rooftop hard, force yourself to keep your eyes open. So far away he looks terribly small, and you can hardly think when you see Joker hit him, send him flying. Just Strawhat, alone, against the greatest evil you know; just him making the final stand, just him left to defend you (and isn’t he a little short to be your knight in shining armor) and every single soul in this thrice-damned land. 

If he lives you’ll kill him yourself, for being so recklessly good-hearted, for being such a _fool._

(It’s still all your fault, of course, your fault that you knew how far he would go for his friends and yet didn't think to stop before you used him for your ends. You hate him for it anyway, for having more good in him than you knew what to do with, for having a soul like a forest fire where everyone else has mere embers.)

You want him to live more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life, and craning your head upward you almost think to pray. Half-remembered words churn in the back of your mind, _Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in our hour of death._

But you don’t believe in God, and even if you did you think God’s will would find its match in Strawhat; for no force of fate could be strong enough to turn him, no higher power could hope to slow him down.

Mere hours ago—a millenia ago, surely—you’d barked at him to not get caught up in another’s pace. How stupid you’d been, thinking that there was anyone whose pace could match his own.

And as you lie there, gaze locked on him, yourself curled over and shaking and dignity be damned, you find something new inside you: an unexpected spark. A light against the darkness that you drown in, a flame brought to life by Strawhat’s own fire.

You hardly recognize it, after all this time, surely sixteen years since you saw it last. But it burns steady, and in the end you know.

_Hope._


End file.
